Church Is A Bit Tricky
Date Posted: 10/7/2002
Author: Dave Westlake



hang out with him. This is the first purpose of church. We are together because we want to get closer to Jesus. We do this by seeing him in each other: Hearing his words to us through teaching, prayer, prophecy and the kind actions of others. Jesus promised that wherever two or three were gathered in his name there he would be. This is a promise that we need to pray every time we go to church. We are not going to a carefully crafted show or a dull service. It's not the great band or the nice people. It is Jesus. And he has promised to be wherever a group of people meets in his name. Jesus then gave them some other jobs to do. They were to extend God's Kingdom. This means letting people know that a new way of living had arrived and that they needed to change and get into it. The Church was to do this by its words - preaching, but also by demonstrating the power of this new way - healing and delivering people. Elsewhere, Jesus added a third way to extend his kingdom - works of kindness and service, particularly to the poor and excluded of the world.

We see this work out in Acts 2:42-47. The believers were together worshipping and praising, learning about Jesus from the Apostles. There were signs and wonders and preaching. There were no poor because people shared freely and looked after each other. The result was amazing growth in the church.

Jesus set up the church so that his followers could love him, serve him and share him with others. Sadly, lots of our churches and youth groups are not like this. They are full of cliques and gossip. They are sometimes just social clubs and sometimes boring. One of the saddest things is that we often just give up. When it doesn't work for us we move to the next church or youth group - often saying that the old one just didn't meet our needs. There is a time to leave a church or youth group but before we do we should ask ourselves whether we are being church to other people. Are we identifying with Jesus and learning to love others even when it's hard? Are we seeking Jesus and trying to see him and hear him in the others at our church and in the worship? Are we hearing him asking us to serve others by what we say for Jesus, what we do in his name and by praying for his spirit to bless people? It's very easy to walk away from church. It's harder to be church to others.

The importance of church for Jesus isn't the buildings or style of worship. It's not how wild or slick the services are. It's people: all different, all seeking to love Jesus and love each other.

This article first appeared at www.soulsurvivorusa.com
It's one of those things like exercise and cabbage that you know is meant to be wonderful but you are never quite in the mood for at the moment. Then these are the wonderful times when church really works. You are in trouble and find yourself surrounded by people who care for you. The talk is aimed right at you and helps you live your life for God. The worship leads you closer to Jesus than you have ever been before.

Sadly, we all know that it isn't always like this. For a start the church is full of people whom we might not choose to spend time with. Some of them may not understand us or we them. We may not like them very much, or maybe they are just different. The talks are not always wonderfully interesting and the worship is sometimes just bad singing. It's in these moments that we wonder what the point is and why on earth God invented church. It sometimes seems really hard after getting home from great events like Soul Survivor, where it was all wonderful: suddenly church can seem so irrelevant. So the first thing to do is look at what Jesus was after when he invented church.

We get a picture of church from Jesus in Mark 3: 13-15. Lots of people were interested in Jesus and were listening to him but he called some of them to be his close friends. These were the disciples who were the twelve who were to become the twelve apostles. Jesus called them out of the crowd so that he could train them to be like him. When he called them their first job was simply to be like Jesus. Then he gave them some jobs to do - preaching and healing. We can get a lot of help about church from this.

First of all Jesus called people to step out of the crowd and join him. It was safe in the crowd. You could be interested in Jesus without anyone noticing too much. Jesus made these disciples' faith very public. This is one of the reasons that we have church. It is where all the people who want to follow Jesus stand out of the crowd and identify with Him. We know that that is sometimes hard: friends don't understand why we go to church or laugh at us for it. It's about leaving the crowd and saying, ""I am a follower of Jesus""

Of course Jesus didn't just call one person, he called twelve at this point. This was good in that it's nice to have friends; it was bad in that they didn't get to choose who their new friends were. It's the same for us. Church is where all sorts of people who are different come together to follow Jesus and work out what it means to love one another. The disciples were a mixed bunch: there were educated and uneducated people, a revolutionary against Rome and a tax collector that worked for Rome. They were not a natural group. They would not have chosen each other but they learned to love each other, Church is meant to be where people who are different get on. Different races, rich, poor, everything. Jesus seemed to want his followers to model a new way of living. Not fighting, not being prejudiced, but loving people, even when they are different from you.

The first job that they had to do was to be with him;
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